For many businesses, getting your name out there is so important for building brand awareness and authority, and in order to do so you must engage in quality off-site SEO techniques. One very popular and effective link building tactic is utilizing HARO, something we at Sixth City regularly use in our own marketing efforts.
What Is HARO?
HARO, or Help a Reporter Out, is a platform created by journalists to gain knowledge and feedback from relevant outside sources. They retrieve information from readers or other experts to bridge the gap on subjects in their pieces, while adding reliable sources to their articles.
Some key benefits of HARO include:
- Establishing credibility – Since you can provide information that reporters cannot, you will showcase how you are an expert in your niche. This lets any readers know your company’s credibility and status in the industry.
- Increasing company awareness – What better way to get your name out there than to have an article feature you? Readers may search your website to find out more info, leading to you generating more traffic to your website, and potential sales.
- Boosting your SEO – If a journalist cites your website in their article, they will also link back to your website. Since many magazines and newspapers have a lot of domain authority, this will in turn help boost your own DA and make your site more visible to search engines.
More Places Like HARO
HARO is a great way to form connections, increase your credibility, and establish authority online. Here is a list of other sites that will do the same!
Buzzstream
Buzzstream is a tool that does research into relevant influencers in a certain niche. You can also organize outreach, reach prospects, and follow up with influencers.
Key advantages include:
- Managing link building in one place
- User-friendly interface
- Affordable and effective
- Ability to find information quickly
Meltwater
More than 30,000 companies use Meltwater to stay up to date on the latest conversations within a preferred industry. The three features include monitoring to receive daily digests, analyzing media coverage patterns, and distributing your content to the right audience.
With Meltwater, you can:
- Look at all mentions of your brand easily
- Monitor social media websites
- Look at insights on your editorial footprint
- View the latest trends and news insights
NinjaOutreach
NinjaOutreach is a complete CRM with prospecting, managing, analyzing and reporting abilities. This software collects a great amount of information from a database and completes an outreach template for industry experts. The well-designed platform is very easy to use and eases the communication process between journalists and experts.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo analyzes a lot of content and makes it accessible to numerous businesses. It will show you the most shared links and industry experts on each topic. Backlinks are shown per connection you make too!
ProfNet
ProfNet is a platform that uses both experts and journalists. The journalists will search for the expert and the expert provides them with their knowledge and publicity. It is an email-based model that reaches out to experts via email queries. This specific software has been around since 1992 and touts access to many experts across a wide variety of sectors.
Media Kiti
By joining Media Kiti, you network with lifestyle content creators and representatives from name-brand companies. Connect with others to see what additions you can make to your posts and vice versa. Some key aspects of Media Kiti are:
- Exclusive opportunities
- Strong trusted relationships
- Unique story ideas
- Searchability for valuable information
- Ability to reach people directly
Source Bottle
Source Bottle is a free platform that allows journalists and bloggers to find knowledgeable sources. Just like HARO, it gives industry experts publicity and shows off their knowledge. You can either find a source or be a source. The topics found on the platform include:
- Business and finance
- Environment
- General
- Health and wellbeing
- Lifestyle, food and fashion
- Parenting and education
- PR, media and marketing
- Professional services
- Property
- Technology
- Travel and leisure
Pitch Rate
Another site that connects experts and journalists is Pitch Rate. For free, you can start building your connections with experts to be the go-to credible source for reporters. The categories of expertise range from business to design/architecture to love and relationships. On Pitch Rate, you are sure to find a query to fit your expertise!
Qwoted
One of the best alternatives to HARO that is new to the industry is Qwoted. Marketers, writers, and PR professionals can sign up for free, and can even manage accounts for people they represent, or just themselves. Under the free plan, you are able to pitch your answer to 3 “premium” sources, but there are others that are free to respond to. Similar to HARO, you can recieve customized emails on queries that are related to your interests.
Terkel
Also newer to the marketing scene is Terkel. Free to sign up, with paid plans available, you are able to reply to requests from various niches similar to HARO (business, home and garden, real estate, and more). They also include pitches that are local to Arizona, which can be an assest for businesses out West looking for more local link opportunities.
Reach Out to Sixth City for Link Building Help!
Here at Sixth City, we can provide you with many different SEO strategies to help your company boost its online presence. We pride ourselves on our diligent link building tactics.
Contact us today to learn more about the SEO help we can offer. We look forward to hearing from you!
